Earthling

Interviewed autumn 1995 at the Crossing Border festival in Den Haag

In 1995 the sound coming from Bristol took over the world. Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky all charged up the charts, ended up in many end-of-the-year lists and got many music awards. Still there's one band from the same town that hasn't had as much attention as it should have. Earthling, a 'studio' act consisting of two persons. Rapper Mau, responsible for the seemingly incoherent lyrics and multi-instrumentalist and downright sound guru Tim Saul who lays down the grooves and the weird sample soundscapes.

The above in mind I fire away with the boldest question I could think of. Why the hell aren't you popular yet? Tim and Mau chuckle away for a minute and finally answer: "We don't know. You tell us." Mau: "It's probably because we don't use as many sung vocals as the others. Sung words are easier to sell compared to spoken words. But in a way I'm quite pleased our success hasn't grown exponentially. At least our record isn't lying around on the coffeetable of every moron with so-called taste." Tim: "But maybe everyone's a bit tired with Bristol. We get compared to Tricky and Portishead so much and that's a pity, because we aren't that much alike. Music journalists are just too lazy and forget putting everything in perspective." But Earthling are quite positive about the fact they are put in the 'Bristol' corner, the term 'Triphop' is the really tricky one. Mau: "If we find our record in the Triphop section of a recordstore we try and put it under Bristol." A better category to fit Earthling into is oldskool hiphop. The way they build up the grooves and the fact the lyrics are often more important than the music makes them easier to fit in with for instance Public Enemy than any other triphop act. Mau: "Of course we are inspired by the music of that era, but to say we sound like a lot of groups of that time, no, not really." Earthling is quite special in this world and they'd like to keep it that way. Tim: "If people would tell us we sounded a lot like another band, we would really try and change our music. What's the use of making something that's already there?"

The originality of Earthling is most obvious in the lyrics. At the least appropriate moments of the day snips of Mau's raps shoot through the head. I'm that man from 1686, saying black people come from Venus. Do you use cut up techniques? Mau: "Yeah, I've used it, but only as an experiment. Usually the lyrics write themselves. It's a question of filling in what isn't there yet." Tim: "It's the same with the music. The songs change even till the very last moment, and beyond. Now we play them live nothing stays the same." And that's the way it should be, because if bands on stage would sound like they sound at home, we could just as easy have stayed at home listening to the record. Tim: "But we're under an awful lot of pressure from the press, everyone is saying bands like ours aren't able to perform live. Everyone thinks we're going to play of DAT. But usually we take about eight people on stage. We have worked hard all summer to take this record on the road." Earthling started a few years back as an bedroom/studio band without a lot of live experience. Tim: "And that's why it's so important to us. Already it has an effect on our music. The new EP contains tracks we recorded with the band, without touching any electronic gadgets." Thanks to the live experience they have concluded they are able to do anything they like. Tim: "Maybe we'll change into a folk duo in the coming years, or a 24 piece orchestra for that matter. Just as long as we progress."

Some people tend to be more polaroid than paranoid. Here we go again, the lyrics are flooding my brain. Tim: "I've got the same thing, since we recorded the record I didn't need to hear it again. Every track is ringing around in my head." Mau: "You remember the lyrics so well, because at first they go one direction and then all of a sudden they take a left because there's a word there that shouldn't have been. That's what people remember." Tim: "Everyone's going on about our lyrics being so abstract. And sometimes they're right, but the lyrics aren't too abstract, or else you wouldn't remember the lyrics, right?" Earthling's lyrics start to get a meaning in the head. On first hearing it sounds like a heap of sounds and words. In the head everything starts to make sense. Tim: "Precisely. And even then the meaning isn't clear. But you start to understand, no, you start to feel. Our lyrics aren't logical, they are purely instinctive. It pulls a lever in your brain. We expected if it worked the same with us, it would work with other people."

Before they got together Tim and Mau had saught for a creative partner for years. Tim: "Before I met Mau I worked with about fifty other singers and rappers. But with none of them I could create something really special. The first day I worked with Mau we wrote 'I could just die', we both did our part and it fitted perfectly. For a long time I thought it was too good to be true. But it just worked out." And now they are bonded creatively like a special kind of marriage. Mau: "We complement each other." Tim: "But to keep it intense and exciting we agreed that the lyrics should be so good that you'd listen to them without the music. And the music should be so good that it could easily be released as an instrumental. That's what we work so hard at and that's why it sounds good." Another element which makes Earthling exciting is the element of surprise. Tim: "If you've been working on a record for over three months it tends to get a bit boring. And that's why we listened very carefully during the mix and tried out something weird now and again. First we listened for pieces of music which seemed to promise something and then we did the opposite." Not anyone who worked with them understood that way of making music and a lot of times the sound engineer in the studio told them they had completely spoiled a track.

Most of Earthling's songs are rather experimental and often they're difficult to comprehend. But a song like 'Planet of the apes' is clear and even has some political comments in it. Mau: "With a small p though. We wanted at least one of the songs say something important about dayly life. Just so we wouldn't be portrayed as astronauts on dope who don't give a damn about the world." It didn't help. Everyone thinks Earthling is weird like they're from Mars. Tim: "But 'Earthling' is a normal name isn't it? It's the one thing everyone on this planet has in common." Earthling is of this world. They haven't sold that many records yet. But they've never heard of giving up. Their thoughts are moving in all directions. New music and lyrics flow through their brains. They're happy. Mau summerizes: "No one buys our music, so it has to be special. We will never sell records! Fuck them all!!!"